Wren and Selina have claws (laminette) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-05-03 11:47:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | catwoman |
Who: Wren
What: Narrative: Turning herself in, handing Gus over
Where: Caesars → Jail
When: Today
Warnings/Rating: A decided lack of happy
Wren had only been in bed a few hours, when she felt his tiny hands tug on the bedsheets and use the soft fabric as an anchor to pull himself up. It was enough to rouse her entirely, because Gus usually woke her from a distance, with whimpers and cries for his missing parents from the couch in the sitting room. She dragged open heavy eyelids, but no, he wasn’t crying, and he was whispering lisped commands to Finch, who was (apparently) supposed to climb onto the bed without waking her - a feat for a dog of Finch’s size. So she closed her eyes, and she pretended not to feel the heavy bounce when the dog landed on the bed, and she smiled when the little boy giggled at his own success. A few seconds later, he curled against her side, tiny and warm and smelling of sleep and blankets and fur, and she tugged him closer with a sleepy sigh, not wanting to take his triumph from him. He was asleep within seconds; she didn’t fall asleep again.
Three hours later, and the dog was barking to go out, and Gus was running around the suite with the blue towel from his bath tied around his neck, claiming to be Superman. Wren was pretty sure the color was wrong for the cape, but she didn’t correct him. She took Finch out, fed the superhero, and then settled into the chair in the sitting room to think about what would happen in just a few hours. Eventually, Superman tired, and he crawled into her lap without asking if he was allowed to. She smoothed the sweat-damp curls from his forehead and sang a French lullaby, the same one she always sang as he dozed, and he fell asleep against her, trusting and no longer bruised. His little bowed lips were parted as he slept, and his lashes seemed impossibly long, and it was all she could do not to cry.
Two hours later, and Finch was being so quiet that Wren knew that he could sense something was wrong. He was sitting by the door to the suite, tail entirely still, and even Petti was behaving from his angry distance on the couch. Gus was hiding, and Wren wondered just how much he understood at his age. She’d been looking for him for fifteen minutes and, in the end, she sat down on the couch, dressed in a sedate gray dress to her knees with black stockings and heels, and she waited. It took another ten minutes for the little boy to crawl out of the linen closet and make his way to the couch, where he wordlessly climbed up beside her. She’d dressed him in khakis and a white shirt, and his hair refused to stay where it should, and she dragged gentle fingers through the defiant mess of brown. He tipped his head up to look at her, lower lip bloodied from his own teeth and gray eyes too knowing, and she gave him the best reassuring smile she could manage. She should lie, she thought, but she couldn’t. In the end, she didn’t have a chance; his little arms wound around her middle and she just tugged him onto her lap, the ridiculously expensive gray fabric of the dress forgotten.
One hour later, and the police station was a nightmare. Wren had spent the drive over explaining what would happen, that someone nice would take him somewhere safe for a few days, and that Luke would come and get him later. She tried to tell him it would be fun, an adventure, but he only curled up in the corner of the car and hugged his knees to his chest. She was crying by the time she had to consent to let the driver (not Silver, and God she would have given anything for that familiar face just then) pull Gus out of the car, because the little boy wouldn’t let go of the car door, and she was already crying too hard to see past the tears. The little boy was in her arms a second later, terrified and shaking and begging to go home, and it didn’t get any easier inside. He was scared of everyone, of everything, and he clung with more force than any four-year-old should be able to manage. There were screams and shrieks and kicking feet, and the police had to hold her back as they took the little boy away. He reached for her over the shoulder of the man in black, called her name again and again, and she couldn’t do anything about it. She felt as impotent as she had all those years ago when they took him, and all her fight was gone by the time questioning began.
Even with the lawyer there, it was grueling. Eight hours and a visit from the county forensics officer later, and she was officially arrested and led to a spartan cell in prison orange, Property of Las Vegas County Jail emblazoned in black across her back. She wasn’t afraid, and she wasn’t angry; she was numb, and that was worse. She knew MK would be released pending the corroborating DNA evidence, she hoped Iris was already being set free, and she had to believe someone was already knocking on Luke’s door, asking him to come in for DNA testing. She had to believe all those things, or she might start screaming and never stop. As it was, she was quiet. She couldn’t call Luke, couldn’t implicate him, couldn’t even ask about Gus, and nothing else seemed to matter. She curled up on the cot, and she closed her eyes, and she yearned for sleep, but all she could hear were Gus’ screams, and all she could see was the terror on his little face, and she knew she wouldn’t be sleeping, not anytime soon.